


Wanted Man

by Teawithmagician



Series: Goodness, it's Stucky! [15]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Adultery, Angst, Drama, F/M, Female Steve Rogers, Guilt, Het, Post-Civil War, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 15:58:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6383074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t want this child. I don’t need it. You don’t want it either. It is all a mistake that will kill you one day if I can't protect you, and against HYDRA, even I can fail.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wanted Man

The sun is golden over the lapis lazuli sea. This is not the watercolors, oil preferably, but Stevie would try drawing the view with the pastel pencils as oil gives the whole work rather a heavy, academical texture she tries to avoid. If she is not lucky with the pencils, she always has gouache, Stevie thinks, orange juice is running down her chin.

The kitchen has the sea-view. It's not like the kitchen in Stevie's flat, it's modern, cool and looks like a studio more like a place in the flat you peel off the carrots. It's a kind of kitchen you invite guests to, the kitchen that is not divided from the living room but being a part of its design with all its chrome and wood, and glass and stylized stone inserts.

Bucky is making sandwiches. There are large tomatoes which look like falling from the paintings of the old masters, lively green salad, crunchy and still wet from washing, fat white porous cheese, orange spicy bacon and smoked turkey. Bucky makes sandwiches much better than Stevie for his level of concentration and self-absorbance is higher than hers, than any of the team members'.

Stevie is not sure if Fury is testing Bucky for the Avengers because Thor left, and Bruce says his further taking part in the operations is questionable: he prefers to be a scientist, not a combatant. Bucky, on the one hand, accepts the idea as he wants to do something opposite to his HYDRA work he doesn't like to talk about, but he says he is not sure he can work with Stevie.

“Why do you think so?” Stevie asked Bucky in Tai Pei. In the night, the city was gleaming like a Christmas Tree, even on Broadway were less life and color. Red, blue, white, yellow neon lights are casting glints on Bucky's face. “We worked together when it's all had just started. We can do it once again.”

“If we did it then, it doesn't mean we can do it now,” Bucky says. He stands on the very edge of the rooftop, there are more than sixty floors between him and the city down below. Stevie always feel uneasy when he stand like that, it started in the forties Bucky was so fragile even a sudden hit of the motorcycle could break his bones. HYDRA made him tougher, but still Stevie is afraid he'll be hurt.

“Are you afraid I'll be hurt, and you'll become unprofessional?” Stevie asks. When she was sixteen, she dreamed about eastern seas. Now she is in Tai Pei, but she can only see the sea that mighty splashes on the coast behind the versicolor skyscrapers.

 

“I am not afraid,” Bucky's rifle is so massive it looks like a howitzer. It's heavy but Bucky carries it with one arm, with his metallic one. Stark's Industries skin are removed, showing the lamellar structure of the prosthesis, and the red star, which Bucky hates the most. “I know it will happen.”

When Bucky clings the hook on his belt to the rope, stretched between two building over the canyon of cars, shops, squares and fountains, filled with people, cars and, possibly, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, he makes just a little racing, but on the very edge he doesn't jump – he slides in into his gliding from one tower to another, doing it gracefully like a nature-born dancer.

When Stevie clings her hook, she puts the shield behind her back. Her city uniform is darker, the star on her chest is reflective, and there are no black and red stripes at her waist. When she slides after Bucky and flies over the abyss, she knows it had happened before the snowy mountains and a smoking train underneath their feet. Only one thing never changes: to slow down, Bucky hits both his feet on the glassy surface of the tower, making it cover with cracks.

Back to reality, the knife bites deep with its stainless teeth, the juicy, pinkishly sugar-red innards of the tomato cracks open Bucky's fingers. The juice in Stevie's glass looks like blood, these oranges has all the shades of cantaloupe inside of them, but still they are called red, and still they are sweeter than any oranges Stevie ever ate when she was sick, tired and in the hospital, and Bucky bought oranges for her and pushed them through the hospital fence.

Stevie was allergic to the oranges, too, but less to, for example, chocolates or dust, and she wanted to put her teeth into the yellowish splashy meat, even if it cost her the rash over her body. She is not allergic to anything now and enjoys the orange juice anytime she wants too. Looking at Bucky stashing the slices of bread with crunchy salad and gutted tomato, Stevie sips the juice, and then he takes the bacon, licking his lips quickly, she gives him her glass to make a sip, too.

Bucky drinks from her hands because both his hands are busy with the knife and the bacon, and when he stops to drink and Stevie's fingers are dry as the juice runs down his chin and drops on the chest. Stevie wipes the juice with her fingers and Bucky licks them, sucking the fingers into his mouth. When he does it, he closes his eyes. The way he focuses on doing it makes Stevie want to kiss him and to try how different oranges can taste from one mouth to another.

**

They find a place on the beach where the sand is especially bright, next to a snag bleached by the sea-salt. Bucky throws the plaid on the sand and unrolls it with his foot. Stevie squats before the backpack and takes out the sandwiches wrapped in the newspaper. They have the food wrapper, but if Bucky can use the paper he will do it – Stevie must confess, sometimes she does the same.

“Hey, Buck,” Stevie says. Bucky tilts the hair from his face. He's wearing nothing but Hawaii shorts, he doesn't need to hide his arm as the island belongs to S.H.I.E.L.D. – there can be no unexpected visitors. Firstly, it belonged to the Stark family, but as Tony came here only once or twice, for Mediterranean style parties which soon were out of style, giving the island away was no big deal for him.

“Yes?” Bucky leans over just to kiss her on the forehead. Stevie would giggle, but she is not giggling. His lips are sticky, his hand on the back of her neck is cool and pleasant, Stevie likes the feeling.

“Do you remember the backpack you carried when it all had just begun? The one with the notes?” Stevie feels the breeze on her face, and she kneels and feels her knees sinking in the sand. Bucky keeps silent, his hand still on the back of her neck. “Do you want to know?” he asks, and Stevie opens her eyes, “Yes. I wanted to ask... I always wanted to ask – all these notes you made. Do you think they helped or not?”

“It's because of Bucky and Winter Soldier,” it's easy to guess. Bucky squats before Stevie like she's done moments ago. There are a few old scars on his arms and his chest, the one on the elbow, he got it at the baseball match when the mob pressed Stevie and Bucky to the railing on he had to press against the wall until his bones start crunched not to have Stevie smashed on it.

“Yes,” Stevie nods. For a moment or so, she sees Tony face instead of Bucky's. It's a flash of memory she is ashamed of. The special connection she had with Bucky for all these years only grows stronger, but there's a soft point in her heart she never confesses she has, and this spot is marked “Stark”.

Bucky interprets Stevie's confusion in the other way. “You think I am unstable and possibly insane?” The way he formulates makes Stevie want to cry sometimes. For Winter Soldiers, there are no shades of colors in life, and though for Stevie is few in the question of justice, she is still stunned by the way he takes the truth out, making it as repellent as he can.

“No. I still don't know what's happening inside of your head. And nobody knows.” Stevie hugs her knees, clasping her hands. Her nails covered with peeling polish, the remnants of the charity ball Tony arranged, sending the invitation to every Avenger he could reach. Though Fury considered it irresponsible, Stark proved that technically he is not acting against S.H.I.E.L.D. security program, but helping to make a social connection - “off the people, for the people”.

Stevie thought it irresponsible, too. But she hardly kept laughing at Tony's imperturbable answer. She had to attend the ball because, after it was confirmed, as an Avenger she couldn't reject it. The second reason was Bucky, she wanted to take him out like they did and if they couldn't dance like they used to, they could have fun like they did.

“Nobody needs to.” Bucky's answers abruptly. The sea smells with pines as there is a pine grove over the sloppy hills, surrounding the harbor and the beach. Resin and seaweed, wet sand and warm water smell with freedom. Stevie breathes it slowly and carefully like her breath can still be interrupted by the fits if asthma. “That's my thing. I'm not going to share it. I need nobody else in my head.”

“I am no nobody,” Stevie says looking down at Bucky's toes grown into the sinky shallow sand. She could look him into the eyes, but his eyes are twice worse than any mirror – now Stevie shares Bucky's hatred towards the mirrors. Mirrors reflect the truth, and Bucky's eyes reflect the past, too, and some of the secrets Stevie prefers to keep away. “I'm Stevie, and I want to know. You know, why.”

“I know I am James Buchanan Barnes, born on March 10, 1917,” Bucky starts mechanically. He must be learning his dossier by heart. Never stumbling on names and dates, he proceeds confidently, though Stevie hears no recognition in his voice. “I know I served in Europe and I was a sniper at Howling Commandos, led by you. I know we were friends. I know I died after falling off the train and Hydra found me. I know they had brainwashed me and made me their weapon. They gave me a new name. There was a time it was better to me to be Winter Soldier.” For the first time, Stevie senses the lack of the full-metal confidence in his voice, and it sounds like a crack in the armor.

“And now?” the sun emerging from the torn fuzzy clouds blinds Stevie, milky lace stretched across the sky as a promise of the rain or a momentary obscuration. The brightest glares, shining like signal fires, are the ones reflected with Bucky's metallic arm, sand stuck between the plates.

“Now I know I am them both, I am Winter Soldier. I am James Barnes.” Stevie doesn't expect him to say that. She doesn't see his face because of the sun, but she touches it just to know there is Bucky under her hand, under her fingers running on his skin. The hair falls on his face, but Stevie doesn't dare to tuck it behind his ears.

“You talk in your sleep, you know. You talk to the man called James though sometimes you call him Bucky,” she confesses. It's not always pleasant and easy to tell the truth, but she always feels relief when telling it. The wind is playing with Stevie's hair, but it's not only the wind, it's Bucky, his fingers weaving into her hair.

“Yes. Sometimes I see Bucky like he is another man. Not every day, I am not insane. Sometimes he comes out of me. It happens under the specific kinds of stress.” He speaks of such things in such a common voice Stevie would believe they are most common, but she doesn't believe him. The things happening to Bucky, they are uncommon, so his experience is. Should she accept it if he feels better this way, or fight for his sanity furthermore?

Stevie doesn’t know, but sane or not, she and Bucky, they are bound to get into this mess together. She never told him for the last time, but this time, she doesn't feel like striving on her own. Truth jumps out from her tongue once again and Stevie knows she won't regret asking: he has a right to know as well as she has a right to speak about it.

“The one you had when you know I am pregnant?”

“Yes. These kinds of stress,” Bucky agrees easily though his voice becomes mechanical a little – and a little bit distant. He wants to take his hand off Stevie's head, she feels the impulse making him move it, but he prefers to keep it, his fingers circling her ear. “If you want to know if I ever am Bucky again. No. I am Bucky. But I'm not the Bucky you used to know, that's what I used to say. I have changed. Sometimes I feel it like I am two people, sometimes like I am the one. I'm not the boy you served with. You must understand it.”

“I don't need to understand, I just know it,” Stevie protests, rejections flaming like a bonfire. She's tired of waiting, she's tired of being hurt and she's tired of being alone, and she wants Bucky to know it, as well as she can do it on her own. “And I am not a girl you used to protect. Times have changed. So we have changed, too. I only want to know if you are comfortable with who you are now. And if you are, I want you to be honest now.”

**

Natasha says once she's been on the island with Clint. Stevie never asks her for specification, Clint is a family man. Natasha and he can just be friends – or can't, sometimes that happens. Stevie feels slightly ashamed about the way it can happen sometimes as Buck walks out from the water, his hair ends wet. He never walks too far from the shore because his arm makes him a lame swimmer. What gives him balance ashore drowns him down in the water.

“How did you took me from the river then?”, “I didn't say I can't swim. I said I can't swim good and fast.”

Stevie has already swum in the coastal waves, she takes off the top of her swimming suit and put it on the towel. The towel is really big, it's yellow but unlike sand, it's pastel yellow like plums or peaches, and there are two entwined golden letters on the very corner of it: TS, Tony Stark. The towel belongs to Tony Stark, the house belongs to Tony Stark. Can the pines, the sun, the sea and the air belong to Tony Stark either? Once it was not only Tony, once it was a family. Now, it's all gone, only Tony left.

Bucky looks at the letters on the towel, as he approaches, too. The closer he comes, the guiltier Stevie feels. She knows she shouldn't feel guilty about her moments of weakness, it's what Sam told her when once she hinted him she's done a thing she regrets. She knows she's felt lonely and fallen from the perfects picture every Avenger was in, fallen from her time and lived in the age she hasn't been entitled to.

She knows when Tony gave her one more glass of champagne and she told him it's enough drinking for today, she didn't understand what he is laughing about, and Tony said her a strange thing in response. He said, Stevie reminds him of his mother – she was a woman like nobody else. Stevie is a woman like nobody else. If there is such a stupid thing like a destiny, they were destined to meet, and Tony was destined to remember her.

The way he says “remember” made Stevie ask him, “What about Pepper?” “Pepper is very special,” Tony didn't seem ashamed or taken by surprise with that question of her, but he didn't look amused, too. Stevie felt like he is speaking of something he thought about. “But you are who you are.” “And who am I?” Stevie asked looked into Tony's dark starry eyes, or maybe it was just the lights over the swimming-pool, and the night, and the smell of acacia. “Maybe I'd better ask who are you without your costume?” Tony smiled, and as Stevie stood up, he stood up, too.

“Don't go. I don't say this too often, but please, don't go.” “Why shouldn't I?” You have the flame, I have the brain and the money. We can change the world or just not to let the others ruin it.” “Do you think it is enough to stay?” “Don't go, captain. There's a lonely billionaire who needs you here.” Stevie remembers the feeling of Tony's hand on her shoulder. He knew she could break his arm twice, but he made that touch, and the sincerity of it was the sacrifice. “I need you to stay,” he repeated. “Stay. Should I say please once again? We both know how stupid it sounds when I say it.”

“I'm not the man you need,” Bucky says. The sun still shines and the breeze is gentle, not a shadow falls on the shore, but Stevie feels the word becoming dim and fragile. Bucky said it before, Bucky said ages ago before that very mission, and he says it once again like he is bound to push Stevie away even in the times it seems they have nothing to lose for they have lost it all.

“Why do you say so?” Stevie asks. The way Bucky looks down at her makes him look like a stranger. The stupid Hawaiian shorts he wears is not making him any familiar, the whole sense of strangeness pierces into Stevie like a bullet in a slow motion. This man, strong and tall, covered with scars, his metallic arm carved into his mutilated shoulder, is so different from her Bucky, and though sometimes he speaks exactly like Bucky, the impression is unbearable.

“I can see it. Everybody can see it,” the man, who on the one hand is Bucky, and on the other isn't, says to Stevie and she thinks that to lost one's mind is easier than she thinks. It's Winter Soldier coming back to life with all the power of the inevitability, he is especially good in saying things that make they both hurt for it was the first feeling he knew: being hurt.

“I love you, Bucky,” Stevie says. The waves splashing at the shore make a sound of torn silk, from the corsage to the lap the outlet dress is torn. Stevie thinks she gets accustomed to the way Bucky never looks at her with his eyes full of stars, never taking her out to the evening park, never says her she is beautiful, she is never becoming his girl; she thinks she gets accustomed to the way Bucky looks at her, knowing she is not affording herself to make it as they are no equals – at war, she is his captain, and she ought to act in the way captains act.

She thinks she gets accustomed to the way his personality switches, but the slightest changes of the quality of voice, its modulation, the mimics and the manner of standing and looking at her make her start and realize: somebody has gone and somebody has come next. If she only can get accustomed to it, but in the end, she can't: Bucky is just the way he is, and Stevie can't stand it.

“Love is not enough. I am brainwashed former member of HYDRA. I am unstable. My mutagen is instable. Do you think a man like me can be a father for your child?” Winter Soldier's hair falls on his face white as snow, bristle sticks out of the pale skin like a weed from the ice crust.

Stevie remembers she and Bucky slid down the snowy hill on her shield. The snow was old and crunchy, lasting for the spring to melt its old icy bones, the shield jumped and jerked on the bumps and Bucky clang Stevie's belt with his both hands, yelling, “To the right, Stew! Shit, to the left!” Stevie moved the shield with her legs and Bucky helped her to skirt the stumps and sudden ravines in those depths snow reflected with frozen blue. That would be a jolly ride if not HYDRA soldiers opened the heavy fire, and the Howling Commandos holding the most inconvenient position at the step of the hill.

They were so young, Steve and Bucky, blood pumping in their ears, they were so frightened and excited with what they do, and sometimes they felt like immortals – the young gods the shape the history right, to their image and likeness. She remembered how desperately happy they were, the heroes of the war, the new hope, and how quick this feverish invincibility, this blessing turned into the curse – it was only Stevie who was invulnerable, and after she lost Bucky, there was no reason for her not to make the sacrifice.

“We came here not to discuss it like this.” Stevie protests. Her protests are nothing for Winter Soldier. He stands his ground like he does, looking at her with that blind stubborn expression behind his eyes. He clenches and unclenches his metallic fingers just to check his systems are alright, the small, hardly noticeable moves, the chin which suddenly goes blunt like a hammer and his stoned jaw – these are the signs of the storm he keeps inside.

“This child will make you a HYDRA target as far as they know, and they will know it soon. They will try to capture you alive to test you both. They will want to have something made of Winter Soldier and Captain America.”

Stevie wishes she can help him, she can help them both, but she can't. It's not a thing Captain America can solve by just putting on her costume and grabbing the shield. Even if you do believe that heroes exist, who are them without their costumes? Men and women, who sometimes are lost, tired and broken, too. While the world is looking at them, they pretend they don't feel any pain, but when the curtains fall – what is left behind?

“I understand that. That's why I think it dangerous, but I haven't decided yet if it is worth trying.” Stevie says honestly. Winter Soldier's expression changes, it's not blank, it's cold and embittered. He stands, his feet shoulder width apart, his arms stretched at the seams. The power his body exudes is ruthless and unstoppable, but the energy of the destruction it conveys is so strong and pure sometimes it demolishes his body and mind together.

In times like these, HYDRA used to erase Bucky and rewind him. They have created a monster, and the monster they created needed a muzzle and a leash. They were so afraid of him they kept him frozen for ages, the whole HYDRA keeping back one man only – and what does Stevie has against him but her fists and her skill? Nothing. And nothing she would need.

Stevie looks at the stranger and sees her man. Bucky or Winter Soldier, it doesn't matter in the end. She loves them both though this is a bad love and she knows that. It's not a love she needs, not even a love she deserves, but it's a love she has – her cruel, bitter, lost love, overprotective and distant in the same moment.

“I don’t want this child. I don’t need it. You don’t want it either. It is all a mistake that will kill you one day if I can't protect you, and against HYDRA, even I can fail.” Winter Soldier mints the words, setting the rhythm. It's the rhythm of the soldiers marching on the streets of a bombed-out city, it's a rhythm of bullets piercing the armor of the tank, it's a rhythm of the hard pumping its last blood clots – Winter Soldier's got the rhythm; sadly it’s the rhythm of death, which is... which is afraid of dying.

Stevie's dying.

“Aren't you the deadliest their assassin?” Stevie asks curiously. She is a good woman, but not a perfect soldier, everyone accepts that just like the fact Bucky is a questionable person – there are people who still deny the theory he was brainwashed and forced to work for HYDRA, - but a perfect soldier. His technique is deadly and merciless, on missions, he never doubts to do all that it takes no matter the price, the art Stevie never learned if the price was not about her life, but the life of the others. What does he know to admit he is not the biggest S.H.I.E.L.D. fear?

“I was their deadliest weapon, and they must've already found me a substitution. HYDRA is a beast of numerous heads. I am only one man.” Bucky spits out the words one after one like they are his broken teeth. Most of his teeth are implants as they were split during the procedures. His serum was made in USSR and was so painful Bucky needed a plug at every session to prevent his biting his tongue off in agony.

“You are not alone.” Stevie puts her hand on Bucky's hip. His leg is hard and sturdy, every muscle bulges out like a cobblestone, the muscles and sinews strained like ropes. He doesn't need her help as well as she doesn't need his help. Nobody needs no one's help, isn't it? But nobody from his very heart wishes to be left alone with your demons, and Stevie knows Winter Soldier doesn't want it either – just like her.

“No. But against HYDRA, you will need more than the superpowers.” Winter Soldier warns Stevie. Something in his voice makes Stevie ask faster than she thinks it over, “What do you mean?”

“If you need a father to your child, take Tony Stark.”

Stevie shudders at the sound of his voice. How does he know? A mistake she's made she's made years before he knew Bucky was alive and she knew he was Bucky, not a HYDRA's willful murderer. If he is going to blame her, well, she has what to say in response. All the things they've never talked about, the thing surrounded by fearsome silence, would burst out like an abscess, and this time, Stevie wouldn't be strong enough to hold it all back.

“Why do you think so? Why do you tell me this?” she finds the strength to ask. She looks Bucky into the eyes fearless, ready to meet any reproach just like she met the enemy fire. Stevie has never hidden from the fight, this time, she is not going to hide though even the thought of it makes her stumble and lose all the words she is going to tell him.

“He has everything I don't. It will be better for you if you decide to keep the child.” Winter Soldier says abruptly. He breathes deeply with every breath he takes makes burns his lungs inside out. Stevie has a sudden feeling something is obscuring the sun, something dim and black rising from the sand, from the pines, from the water, what takes away all the joy and happiness, leaving only the piercing arctic cold making her shrink into her pilot seat, wishing the pain and the cold will end – if not in this century, maybe in the next?

“What do you want?” Stevie asks, and Winter Soldiers answers angrily, madly, “No. I want him to be gone. I want everything to be in the same way it was. But it is not. It is not.”


End file.
